WPCentral's Nokia Lumia 900 review - call it the HTC One X lite?

Our more dedicated readers will remember that I got my grubby paws on the Lumia 900 back in January at CES and compared it to the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, which once was the best Android phone around. And, actually, it reminds me a lot of what we've now got in the HTC One X. It's got a big plastic (OK, polycarbonate) body, same as the One X. It's two steps backward in resolution, at 480x800, and it's gone for AMOLED whereas the One X has an excellent Super LCD 2 at 720x1280. And we're going to have to have ourselves a regular photography showdown, as Nokia long has set the bar for optics in mobile phones.

How does WPCentral Editor Daniel Rubino put it?

“With one of the best displays for a Windows Phone around, a $99 price point and Nokia’s svelte and sexy design, the AT&T Lumia 900 is one of the best values for a smartphone today. For those people upgrading from a first generation Windows Phone to those folks just coming on board the Nokia Lumia 900 is sure to impress.”

It'll be especially interesting to watch the Lumia 900 because of that $99 price point. AT&T's yet to put a price on its HTC One X, but we're expecting it to be well above $100. If you're at all curious about Android's competition on AT&T, this is a must-read review.

Even the Atrix 2 makes the Nokia look questionable.
$99 - Motorola Atrix 2 - same size screen but 540x960, better battery life, only a 1 GHz dual core cpu, but twice as much ram, half as much internal storage plus up to 32 gig on microSD, 1080P video recording.

If the excitement is all about the LTE, the HTC Vivid is the same price with a 4.5" screen that's 540x960 which means it's actually a higher pixel density, 1.2 GHz cpu with twice as much ram, same internal storage plus 32 gig microSD, bluetooth 3, and HDMI out.

Even the $49 Pantech Burst is LTE, with a 4" super amoled vs Nokia's 4.3" amoled, 1.2 GHz CPU vs the 1.4 in the Nokia, but Burst has 1 gig of ram rather than 512 meg. They both come with 16 gig of internal memory, but the Burst also has a microSD slot that handles 32 gig cards. Battery life on the Burst stinks, but it's a $50 phone.

You can also get a refurbed HTC Vivid for $0.01 from AT&T online or a refurbed Galaxy S II Skyrocket for $20.

But, hey, at least you get all of the cool stuff in the Windows Phone Marketplace! Oh wait... Microsoft... those are the same guys who told all of the MSN Music customers to go to hell when they shut down the MSN Music authorization servers in 2008 and then last month told all of the customers of the Windows Mobile Marketplace that it was their turn to go to hell.. How much money are you going to spend on apps in the shiny, new Windows Phone Marketplace?

So, I don't get it. Luckily, the kids' movie is almost over, so I can go to bed and stop wondering about this stuff.

Every single Windows Phone available right now is still stuck with single core Qualcomms. I think its fair to compare the Lumia 900 to every phone available right now. Its the best thing MS has on its side and Android has the One X, the Galaxy Nexus and the Galaxy S II/Note while Apple has their 4S. Sure they're different but the fact of the matter is, most consumers wouldn't care about specs if the phone can handle whatever they throw at it. The thing about WP right now is that they're comparatively cheap that their high-end offer can only keep up with midrange Android phones and it isn't a bad place to be. They have almost similar specs, familiar price range and are targeted towards budget conscious consumers who wouldn't even think about getting an iPhone or a high-end Android. For its price, WP can still put up a fight and lowend-midrange Androids would have to take the hit.

Yeah, although they need to add a benchmark that reflects a typical daily use where you have a bunch of standby time. Very few people pick their phone up in the morning and surf the web or make phone calls until the battery is dead.

Not to complain about the guys at anandtech... they do a far better job of reviewing phones than any other site I've come across.

The lumia is hobbled by an old, slow inefficient SOC... it will be interesting when MS releases apollo and we start seeing WP devices built on the snapdragon S4 SOC later this year.

For the time being the Lunia 900 is a positive step in the right direction for WP but they are still a generation behind android and iOS.

Thanks Phil for posting this , I× didn't know the review was up (you guys might find this shocking but I do read WPcentral)
I like design of the Lumia 800\900 , but I had bad experiences with Nokia over the past 7 years (Hardware failures , lousy build quality, stupid software ... & a sucky camera) & I'm not sure if I'm ready to their again (I still have a Nokia E75 for my second line)

You guys in the US are lucky! 99 Dollars is a bargain (its was free couple of days ago) , now if I've to import this it will cost me 700 dollars & I'm not sure a Nokia phone worth that much

One more thing
Windows Phone 7(focusing doesn't need a Dual-Core CPU to be smooth , but I agree the resolution is low compared to the current Android phones! & Storage is an ISSUE to me

Can't wait to see Apollo (thats the next major update aka WP8)
Again, Thanks Phil

Ironically, not only does the Caprice, er Lumia 900 have the same specs as my 2 year old Incredible, but you can buy an Incredible for about the same price (without a contract) and you can install Cyanogenmod on the inside instead of cyan on the outside.

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